It was again overcast and stormy, but the day was a little lighter than the day before. As we went over the first bridge, Sharon immediately spotted a GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER (43/381), stuck in place by the storm. I got a good look too. We soon spotted a RED-EYED VIREO (44/382), but the eye looked dark brown in the poor light of the day. There were enough other characteristics and geographical limitations to cinch this ID though.
At this point, we were at the entrance to Trails A, B and C. Trail A (Willow Lake trail) was recommended if you don't have much time, so we chose that. Soon we saw the Eastern counterpart to our California Bullock's Oriole, the BALTIMORE ORIOLE (45/383), with his all-black head. As we continued, Sharon saw a Chestnut-sided Warbler, which I later saw also. We already had seen this bird, but it was an off-season or immature bird in California, and didn't look at all like this colorful fellow. It took a half-hour or so, but finally we both saw the BAY-BREASTED WARBLER (46/384) at the same time, with its subtle colors, black face and reddish-brown cap.
We rounded a corner, and made our way to a photo-blind. We saw a heron-like bird, but it was smaller and was two-toned brown in color. We only saw it flying, never at rest. We couldn't figure it out, so we continued to another photo blind. Here, we heard its call and saw it again, and after reviewing the local birdlist, we ID'd it as a LEAST BITTERN (47/385). As we stood there, Sharon scanned the area and found two ANHINGAS (48/386). We continued on, and soon saw the spectacular ALTAMIRA ORIOLE (49/387), with its black and orange color, fiery orange chest and large size. We also spotted a beautiful male American Redstart, to go with the female we had seen yesterday. Finally, as we were finishing up at this trail, we saw some PLAIN CHACHALACAS (50/388) - the guys making all the racket.
We switched to Trail C (Pintail Lake trail), hoping for Purple Gallinules and Least Grebes. We were unsuccessful in finding these birds, and at first couldn't even find water. But we finally located it, found our way there and saw a TRI-COLORED HERON (51/389). We made our way back towards the main road, and got one of our hardest birds as he flew across the path in front of us, and landed in a tree with his back to us. He never saw us. The long black tail with white spots identified him as the YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO (52/390). We had a good long look at him through our scope. He sat there for as long as we looked, never making a peep.
Before we left the Visitor's Center, Sharon called all our kids to collect her Happy Mother's Day greetings. We returned to Brownsville for our last night there, but stopped at the Fort Brown Hotel, now owned by Ramada. Our target bird soon announced himself, as we watched several GREEN PARAKEETS (53/391) fly around, landing in the palm trees, never quite satisfied with where they were. They seemed huge, and a check of our NGS showed that they were 13 inches. I always thought of parakeets as those little budgies you win at carnivals, who are about 7 inches. We went home to plan the next day's move and enter the day's birds, wondering where the big parrots were.
We walked the Singing Chaparral Nature Trail to the Water Hole, but it was stifling hot, there were lots of bugs, the Water Hole was totally dried up, and there were almost no birds at all. We scouted around the camp then, and Sharon (who can spot a needle in a haystack, even if you don't know one's there) located a Common Nighthawk, sitting on a tree limb, near the trailer camp exit of the park. We watched him for a long time. He looked a little like a big brown frog, from our angle, looking at his face. There are some similar birds in Australia, with the generic name of Frogmouths. We waited for dark, when the "wheeer" calls announced the beginning movements of the local nightjars. We slowly drove the road and spotted a pair of orange eyes, which then flew away. This happened two more times, until we both saw him at the same time. We had our PAURAQUE (56/394).
We drove back to the RV and packed it in for the night.
I also spotted a YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON (58/396) on the Mexican side, with his white cheek patch, sitting near some cormorants. While we were waiting, three men in a rowboat came out of a channel on the Mexican side, and slowly rowed up-river, over to the American side. They landed up the river a little, in an orchard. Then two of them headed through the orchard, towards town while the third rowed back. We figured they were sneaking into the U.S. or maybe were dealing drugs. We got a little nervous and left, checking for the Brown Jay again, but didn't see him.
We drove on to Chapeno, hoping to see a couple of specific new birds here also. We drove past a small shack where a man charged us a dollar for a key to open a gate to provide access to an extra thousand feet of river-front. We jumped on it. After finding the gate, we made our way in, and waited. We saw a couple of kingfishers flying upriver, but couldn't get an ID on them. We finally gave ourselves ten more minutes. Sharon put on her needle-in-a-haystack resolve and scanned the trees on both sides of the river. "I got a kingfisher," she said, about a minute before we were going to leave. She pointed me to the bird, and I got the scope on it. Her binoculars are 7-15 zooms, and she usually uses the 15, although I can't figure out how she can hold them steady at that power. When I put the scope on the guy, it was clearly a RINGED KINGFISHER (59/397), with his completely rust chest and belly. A dollar well-spent. He was on the Mexican side, but that doesn't matter to our global list.
We continued on to Falcon State Park, but just before the entrance, Sharon saw one of our target birds on the right, beyond a fence. "Stop, back up," she said. I did. By then, the bird had ducked behind a dirt bank. She told me what it was, and we listened to their wonderful calls, back and forth. I started walking up the road, because I had seen a head pop up then back down. I positioned myself right in front of his last location. By then Sharon was claiming her "half." It was up to me. I waited. Up he popped for about three seconds, and we had our NORTHERN BOBWHITE (60/398).
Our next-to-last stop of the day was to be at the Falcon Dam itself, and the area below it. We drove to the spillway below the dam, and stopped the truck. A Northern Bobwhite showed himself clearly, for about ten seconds, then flew up over the wall, and down to the river. "Wow, that was cool," we thought, enjoying the fresh picture we had in our minds.
Then we started down the gravel and dirt road to the area below the dam, where all three types of kingfishers were supposed to be. We had been disappointed in our search for the Green Kingfisher so many times, that after walking about a third of the road, we decided not to even try - to give up and return to our truck and camp. We were a little scared by the warnings in Holt's Birder Guide too. Later, we met a couple who walked to the end of this very road and, guess what, got all three kingfishers. Dohp! I hate when that happens.
We headed back towards camp, and stopped in at the Santa Margarita Ranch. Just as the Holt Birder Guide had warned, four dogs came screaming up to our truck barking and raising their hackles. We saw two old women sitting in the sun, and we drove over close to them. "Is this the Santa Margarita Ranch?" we asked. Well it was, and it would cost a buck each to bird. Well worth it, the book said. The lady said in halting English that the dogs MIGHT try to go with us. They had quickly changed from ferocious watchdogs to our best buddies. We started walking and they ran on ahead of us, sometimes running back to make sure we were still coming, clearly elated for the chance to go to the river again.
It was quite a walk - maybe a half-mile. We scanned the area for kingfishers, but didn't find any. Even when we set our "alarm clock" for ten minutes. The dogs jumped into the river and swam around a little, then climbed back out. We saw three snakes swimming along with the river current. We finally gave up. On the trek back to the pickup, suddenly a uniformed man came walking out of the woods directly towards us. We both jumped. "Are you birders?" he asked. It turned out that he was a border guard of Mexican-American descent, and was, well, guarding the border. But he spooked us pretty good. We told him what we had seen in Salineno, and he played twenty questions, then called in on his radio with our information. We parted company when we reached his car, then continued on to our truck.
After checking in, we got a map and took off on the loop trail. We immediately began to hear a loud call, amplified by the canyon. Some kind of hawk? We scanned the area, but even Sharon couldn't find it. It was hard to tell where it was coming from. Then Sharon got serious and spotted it sitting on top of a bush - a Scaled Quail, or blue quail as Sharon's Amarillo uncle would call it. Then we continued on toward the spring.
When we got there, it was a tiny little puddle and it was clear that no kingfisher or even fish would be found here. There must have been some terrific drying-up since the birder guide was written. We headed back towards the trail to the Visitor's Center, but stopped to enjoy the view of the Indian Paintings on the lower canyon walls (with our scope. There were no tours in the canyon at the time).
Seminole Canyon is a 2000-acre park, and contains very shallow caves, called shelters, carved out by the wind, sand and water erosion over eons. One of the best is called the Fate Bell Shelter. It contains some of North America's oldest pictographs, thought to be about 4000 years old. Having got our culture for the day, we headed on to Big Bend.
We made it to the Panther Junction Visitor's Center, stopped temporarily to ask about Lucifer Hummers, Colima Warblers and Elf Owls. We got our information, then drove on down to Rio Grande Village, where we would camp. We arrived there, set up, and went for a birding walk. We quickly saw several Havelina (wild pigs) eating in the tall grass. We walked to the Daniels' Ranch site, and down to the river there, but saw no new birds. We did hear and chase what we believed to be a Bell's Vireo, but he wouldn't let us get our eyes on him. Sharon spotted a Gray Hawk sitting on a telephone or power pole (we later learned it is his favorite pole). We also saw that he had something in his claw. Sharon watched him take off, and the snake he was holding began to coil around his foot. Creepy. We watched a sparkling-red Vermillion Flycatcher, who by coincidence was working his way toward the river also. Then on the other side of the road, we saw the more subtly colored female, with her light salmon-colored belly.
On our return from the river, we saw a flash of brown and black and finally got our ORCHARD ORIOLE (61/399). We bumped into three people from eastern Texas who had seen a Rose-breasted Grosbeak just a half-hour earlier, so I went back to the camp, got the pickup, drove back up to pick up Sharon and we drove back to the area near the Daniels' Ranch site. We followed their directions, but didn't find the grosbeak.
We had seen a huge group of Turkey Vultures gathering on the edge of the RV Parking Area as we were leaving, and when we got back, there were about twenty. A fellow RVer said that one had lifted a steak off of his barbecue after it had cooked a short while. "Make mine rare," he must have been thinking. We also saw another pair of Vermillion Flycatchers working the edge of the area.
Later that night, we drove over to the village store and its night light up on a pole, where we had been directed in order to see an Elf Owl. We saw a bird eating bugs, but he was flying so fast, we couldn't tell for sure if it was an owl or a bat. So we didn't count it. How could we claim such an uncertain bird as our 400th? We retired for the evening, each of us trying to guess which bird we might get for Number 400.
The other birds we saw were the Cedar Waxwing, Black-throated Sparrow, Blue Grosbeak, Northern Cardinal, Pyrrhuloxia, Summer Tanager, Yellow-breasted Chat, Painted Bunting, Cactus Wren, Mockingbird, Lesser Goldfinch and Mourning Dove.
Then we followed a dry wash west of Santa Elena Junction, hoping to see a possible Lucifer Hummingbird, but got no buzz. Next we drove up to The Basin, to see what was to be seen. There is a terrific trail called the Window Trail, but we didn't think we should do the three or four mile round trip, just for an outside chance at a Lucifer. If it had been definite, we might have considered it.
We found a parking spot with a great look at The Window, which is a natural space between two peaks, through which you can see miles and miles. We enjoyed our lunch.
We returned to our camp, thinking we were done for the day. But we talked with some people who said they had seen Bell's Vireos at Dugout Wells. After thinking about it for a minute, we jumped in the pickup and hightailed it back up to Dugout Wells, arriving just before the sun was about to disappear. We ran into our three fellow-birders from eastern Texas, and they said they had indeed seen the Bell's Vireos there. We looked and looked (you can hear them all over the place), and after almost giving up, we finally got the BELL'S VIREO (63/401). This bird's song is in two parts. First he seems to ask a question, then he seems to answer it. "Deedle deedle DEE? Deedle deedle dum."
We continued on to Ft. Davis and Davis Mountains State Park, where we got our trailer campsite. We set up camp, and went to look for the camp host, whom we had been told was putting out bird food every evening to attract Montezuma Quail. We quickly found her, and she said to come to her small trailer at 7:30 pm.
We went to another area she described for us, and looked for an hour or so along Limpia Creek, for the Common Blackhawk. We found the tree and possibly the nest she refered to, but didn't see or hear the birds.
We were so excited about the quail, that we had to go to the camp host's site at 7 pm. Sure enough, about 7:15 pm, a male and female MONTEZUMA QUAIL (64/402) appeared out of the tall grass, from a trail winding down the hill, picking and scratching for food and walking ever so stealthily. About a hundred white-winged doves joined them. The camp host had warned that there was a Cooper's Hawk who knew about the feeding also, and to watch for him. We never saw the Cooper's Hawk, but he must have shown himself, because there was a bird explosion as every one of the approximately one hundred birds feeding out in the open, flew to shelter in about two tenths of a second. It was impressive.
The camp host also told us that there were many many Common Poorwills in the camp, and to listen for them at night. She said they sounded a lot like Pauraques, but were Poorwills. We followed the sounds of one in a tree who then flew, then we heard another in a tree who did the same thing. Their behavior was different from the Pauraques of Bentsen-Rio Grande. We figured that we had heard and seen them well enough to call them COMMON POORWILLS (65/403).
That evening, we took the scenic drive up to a high overlook, saw the strikingly white Indian Lodge hotel complex, nestled in a canyon. We talked to several people who were staying there.
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